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ACS Vice President Scarlett Bouder and ACS Senior Strategist Rebecca Cohen will present at the 2016 National Smart Start Conference in Greensboro, NC, May 2-5. At the nation’s largest conference devoted to early learning systems and strategies, the ACS team will deliver three presentations. Scarlett will moderate a featured session, “From Grassroots to Grasstops: Early Childhood […]

Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC (ACS) will present to workforce development leaders at the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association Conference on May 18, 2016. ACS Vice President Scarlett Bouder and Senior Strategist Rebecca Cohen will join Michael Lawrence, Principal of Community Workforce Advancements, LLC to help workforce professionals: raise their workforce organization’s profile at both the […]

ACS President and Co-Founder Lori McClung met with foundation leaders at the 2016 Grantmakers in Health Annual Conference on Health in Philanthropy last month in San Diego, California. Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to helping foundations and corporate giving programs improve the health of all people. The theme of this […]

There’s an ongoing dialogue nationally about how school choice programs deliver better results for school students. Three recent reports from Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio call into question the effectiveness of K-12 voucher lotteries and charter schools. Louisiana, for example, has the fifth-largest voucher program in the country, which began in 2008 in New Orleans and […]

The new ACS case study, Raising the Bar on Behalf of Boys & Young Men of Color, spells out how a deep and customized approach to grantee technical assistance provided added value for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and five grantees in the Forward Promise initiative. The Forward Promise initiative addresses the fact that […]

In 2010, more than 757,000 adults worldwide took some portion of the GED test according to the GED Testing Service. High school completion or equivalency has long been considered the marker of a student’s preparation for work or postsecondary education. Passing the GED provides youth and adults opportunities to pursue post-secondary education and work. When […]

You know effective communication is important. With the right plan and execution, you can build awareness for your cause, strengthen your base of support, inspire action in others, and help bring about meaningful change. But how do you know that your communication efforts are delivering the intended impact? ACS is pleased to share our latest […]

Riding the national wave of coverage related to public charter school performance in Ohio, a recent Columbus Dispatch article calls into question whether charter schools in the state are having the intended results of increasing high-quality options, “Charter schools were originally intended to unleash free-market competition and innovation, but their overall performance is making the […]

Recently the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed Congress, replacing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. The U.S. Department of Education is now faced with the tricky task of regulating the law, which goes into effect for the 2017-2018 school year. ESSA will have significant implications nationally and at the state level […]

A new study conducted by the American Educational Research Association titled “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?” has garnered national media attention from NPR and the Washington Post. The study concluded that elementary schools are expecting more out of kindergarteners academically and providing less time to spend in self-directed and creative play. The emphasis on […]